The past is prologue. (Gustav nears landfall.)

Mayor Nagin has ordered a total evacuation, saying Gustav is much more powerful than Katrina. If FEMA once again fails, may God protect the people of New Orleans. (Above: the French quarter, courtesy Matthew Hinton/Agence France-Presse)

A moment of silence.

(Above, the Lower Ninth ward in 2008; courtesy In the Loop)

Sure to be buried underneath the ensuing avalanche of post-Speech commentary from the chattering heads of CNN and other outlets will be a tempered but iconic note of support from a seemingly unlikely source: GOP defector Susan Eisenhower. Here’s what her grandfather, a Republican president who presided over eight years of peace and prosperity, said 47 years ago, about the time Obama was born:

“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

“Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Why can’t Obama say this? Was Eisenhower really a man of the so-called radical left, as our political culture would have it today?

“John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4 inch thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the Academy. John had me ‘coming around’ to his room frequently during my plebe year. And on one occasion he took me with him to escape ‘over the wall’ in the dead of night. He had a taxi cab waiting for us that took us to a bar some 7 miles away. John had a few beers, but forbid me to drink (watching out for me I guess) and made me drink cokes. I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact he barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class.

“… I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button. … He is not a moderate Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right. I fear for his nominations to our Supreme Court, and the consequent continuing loss of individual freedoms, especially regarding moral and religious issues. John is not a religious person, but he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist ministers lately. I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he hates that man.”

—Phillip Butler on John McCain, a fellow classman at the U.S. Naval Academy and a fellow P.O.W., explaining why he will not vote for him this November

End this war.

Search your feelings.

It’s a shame that the New York Times didn’t publish Sen. McCain’s editorial response to Sen. Obama’s OP-ed last week. You can read the reprint on CNN here. If the Times actually put it to press, maybe a good number of people—especially these so-called moderates and independents who, supposedly, gravitate toward the phony “maverick”—could see just how extreme McCain’s prescriptions really are, and how shallow his understanding of the situation actually is.

“Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy,” McCain declares. The progress in question is the certifiable decline in rampant insane violence. Yes, that is partly due to the troop “surge” begun in 2007. To his credit, McCain also mentions—without naming it—the “Awakening Councils” of Sunni Iraqis, another US-led initiative. Going unmentioned is the crucial factor of the Mahdi army’s Iraq-Iran brokering of ceasefires that happened around the same time. And, needless to say, enough ethnic cleansing was going on in Baghdad and elsewhere that by necessity there is less violence. But, because this is about political expediency, it’s all you, Mac, and your courageous stand for the Surge.

“No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges.” Okay, then why no mention of the gargantuan embassy we are constructing in Baghdad, or the Status of Forces Agreement? “The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback” if we withdraw, warns McCain. I don’t think this even merits much comment aside from repeating the fact that Qaeda fighters were not in Saddam’s Iraq until we launched the invasion five years ago. Iran “stag[ing] a comeback” in Iraq? Sorry, but that’s retarded. Iraq and Iran fought a bloody war for a decade. If Sadr is the radical, he’s also fiercely nationalist and his forces—Badr brigades and others—would repulse any Persian attempt to “conquer” once the vacuum appears following our departure.

I’m no expert, and Obama’s nakedly opportunistic efforts to put a progressive cloak on moves toward the “center” (e.g. right wing, the “responsible” imperial manager role) like his predecessor frighten and dismay me (see cartoon above), but it’s a very dangerous prospect to put into office yet another figure who doesn’t seem to know shit about something with such high stakes. Hopefully I’m wrong.

Baruch Obama.

Going to see a midnight screening of The Dark Knight. Hopefully it will live up to and exceed expectations. Very psyched. But also it might be a bummer, considering.

When asked if he felt that it was more difficult to run against Mr. Obama because of the sensitivities of race, Mr. McCain responded wryly: “I’d like to make a joke, but I can’t.”

C’mon, Mac, let’s hear it!

The president of our United States is a Communist. Happy Fourth!

I like to study memes and conventions and assumptions in our social reality, and I often take the radical critique. It borders on condemnation at times. I see nothing wrong with this and think, instead, that there’s a lot of value to it. But that’s because there is something deeply wrong with me. I don’t think everything is okay. I’m not going to pretend it’s all good, and I’m not going to live not caring what other people think. It’s because I’m not sane. I’m not a mainstream American. But I am a patriot. The people who call and style themselves as patriots are among the most unthinking, callous people on the planet, of any nation. People of the personality type that cares for nothing more than power and domination are a threat to any country’s welfare and future.

As for my patriotism, love of country is not fear of foreign lands and peoples. Fear of the irrational kind projected onto a concern for national domination is the cancer of our times. It is, to use the proper lexicon, jingoism. A barbarian wearing the clothes of a patriot is not a patriot; it only adds insult to injury when the hated decent people who work for patriotic values and ideals are thrown a traitor’s rags and a tyrant’s crown. There are nationalists in our midst, totalitarian to the core, who despise the Enlightenment and everything it represents, our civil liberties and the constitutional pillars of our democratic republic included.

To the decent, humane, enlightened people of my country, I ask this: are you willing to defend your homeland? We revere veterans of military service in far-off lands, at the half-chained service of interests that see their human needs as little more than the logistical matters of ordnance and ammunition. We hate today’s official satan. America “has no permanent enemies,” to quote the current secretary of state. Indeed our enemy is always changing; yesterday it was Sunni dead-enders, today it is Shiite triumphalists. Yesterday it was Khomeini, today Saddam; yesterday, Qaddafi, today Noriega. And on and on all the way back. What is truth when you cannot find your friends? Or what is justice when you find a new enemy at every corner? We need to take a good hard look in the mirror. I already dread what we’ll see, if we care to open our eyes. Happy July Fourth. Let the bombs burst in air.

“I’m an outsider by choice, but not truly. It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out. I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from: being forced to choose to stay outside.”

“Scratch any cynic, and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”

1937-2008
R.I.P.

R.I.P. Tim Russert.

“The right questions were asked. I think there’s a lot of critics—and I guess we can count Scott McClellan as one—who think that, if we did not debate the president, debate the policy in our role as journalists, if we did not stand up and say, ‘This is bogus,’ and ‘You’re a liar,’ and ‘Why are you doing this?’ that we didn’t do our job. And I respectfully disagree. It’s not our role.”

—David Gregory, NBC News correspondent, 9 June 2008 (as quoted by Scott Ritter, here)

The “right questions” are those, as Gregory implies, that do not question the basic assumptions behind the enterprise; that would be irresponsible. Journalists are not supposed to “debate the policy” or, God forbid, debate the Commander in Chief. Forgive me if I cannot help but picture Pharaoh’s scribes.

“We cannot say with certainty whether Mr. Bush lied about Iraq.”

— New York Times, 6 June 2008 (June 2008!)

What an irresponsible, ultra-liberal newspaper. (The report from the Senate selective-intelligence committee here.)

From the “minority opinion” — written by Orrin Hatch, Saxby Chambliss and Chris Bond, a fine trio of dissenters: “Ultimately, these [Senate] reports reveal a dubious agenda of vainly trying to prove the often quoted, but false, absolutely partisan, slogan, ‘Bush lied and people died’” (p. 166). They’re right: over 4,000 Americans are still alive, safe with their families, in one piece — and not one dishonest word ever escaped the President’s mouth.

They’re very right. Far-right, one could say.

“Kick ass! If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can’t send that message. It’s an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal. There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!”

— President Bush, as quoted by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez (ret.) in his new tell-all memoir Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story, shortly after insurgents in Falluja murdered, hacked and strung up four contractors in April 2004 (Sanchez cited by Michael Abramowitz, in the Washington Post, 2 June 2008, A11); Falluja was extensively bombarded and invaded that November (including the use of white phosphorous), an assault that wiped out hundreds of civilians and ended any hope of pacifying Iraq

“At the risk of repeating myself, this is the crucial difference between patriotism and nationalism: patriotism is love of one’s country and defensive, while nationalism is expressed typically through contempt and fear of other nations and a will to power over other nations. The Iraq war was made possible by a propaganda campaign by the government, the exploitation of public fear and anger, the warmongering of nationalists and the twisting of patriotic sentiment into support for a war of aggression by casting the war dishonestly as one of self-defense.”

— Daniel Larson

If such real-early polling can be relied upon, given that the general election is only, oh, about half a year away, it appears that 11 states are in play and that, if held today, Obama would quite likely beat McCain very, very narrowly. Remember, Obama is that radical Black nationalist Islamic fundamentalist far-leftist right? (More like super-centrist corporate-friendly pacifier... oh now I sound like Paul Street!)